Chaos.
From the opening scenes as masses of people in the dark night are hurried into a building and a room to disrobe, a man with a hat, averting his eyes from anyone in charge, a large red X painted across his back, helps to lead those masses into the building, helps them leave their clothes, also urges them to hurry hurry hurry. Voices shout that they must move quickly or the soup would be cold, they must prepare to work because good workers are needed. Hurry hurry hurry. Don’t forget which hook your clothes are on. Hurry Hurry Hurry. Shouting. Languages. So many languages. Confusion. Chaos. But too, clear streamlined plans by the Germans barking the orders. Masses herded into a room to shower, to be cleaned and disinfected.
And killed. With gas tablets. In the dark. Chaos. Screaming. Crying.
As they die, the man with the red X on his back along with other clothed prisoners—members of the Sonderkommando (prisoners who are working for the Germans)—hurry hurry hurry to remove all of the clothes, beginning to yank them off the hooks as the doors to the showers were closing. To find valuables. To sort the personal belongings of the now-dying Jews. Jews just like these who are sorting their belongings, but lucky to be able to live just a little bit longer. Here too is order in how they process the belongings, but it is order in the midst of pure chaos.
The doors open. Still, more chaos. Hurry Hurry Hurry. The same workers stack dead, nude bodies for removal for burning. Masks over their faces so as not to meet their surely-soon-to-be-met fate too soon. Hurry Hurry Hurry.
The viewer, who was dumped so abruptly into this scene just a few minutes earlier when the film began, knows another group, freshly sorted off the train, waits to enter to do the same.
But a body is not empty of its life. A young boy breathes. Our focused character, Saul, carries him to the doctor. And watches the doctor use his hands to take the last of the boy’s life away.
Saul begs for a burial, not a burning.
This prologue over, a plan forms in Saul and the stage for this story is set. The chaos swirls around all, and the next thirty-six or so hours give us this film, Son of Saul. The viewer travels this jarring, harsh journey as if tethered tightly to the side of Saul, a Hungarian Jew at Auschwitz, marked to help the Germans kill other Jews. Marked.
As I have repeated above, two words stayed in my head while watching the film as if they were a mantra: Chaos. And Hurry. There was no sweeping war drama here. Nothing in the story explains the war or how Auschwitz came to be or how a sole man was given so much power to convey his hate, so as to be blindly followed by those who put all loyalty in him to his message of contempt. We know nothing of who our characters were before this night. Instead, this was a snippet of a day or so in the horrible death camp. This was a snippet of clinging to anything for survival. This was a heart-wrenching, soul-exhausting drama of Death. Fear. Desperation.
This unique perspective of Auschwitz seems at first blush hyper-focused. Was too much left out? Were the perspectives too narrow? But no, this was a perfect piece in the art that portrays the horror that occurred in our world’s history. It is a perfect look at the vile actions humans can take. It was the perfect way to take a huge horror of the last century and break it into a manageable piece to get a close look at this madness to better see and perhaps better understand just how awful it was; for if this is one day, imagine the entire war. Imagine all of those days, put together. We know what led here. The key in this film is what happens here. What desperation looks like. What hopeless looks like. What an uncertainty of whether you will die now, in five minutes, or tomorrow, or in five days looks like—when you know you will die soon. Because someone hates you for your beliefs. Your ethnicity. Your religion. Your country.
On the flip side of that is what hate looks like and the impact it can have on its followers. Sometimes permanent. What power looks like in a micro view. What happens when life and humanity cease to be of value. What happens when reason is dropped for blind following.
I visited Auschwitz in December, just three months ago. I don’t know how much of that colors my view of the film, but I’m sure it does some. Three months ago I walked through one of the crematorium buildings at Auschwitz I. Three months ago, on a cloudy, damp, cold day, I walked past the end of the rail line at Auschwitz II where so many people were herded off train cars, sorted, and led to their deaths. Three months ago, I walked past the seemingly bottomless piles of personal effects of those who were killed there, those personal effects that were sorted from them as they were led to death. Three months ago, I stared out at the surrounding countryside in Poland, areas where some brave Jews ran. Escaped. Died. I was awed by their bravery. I was crushed by their loss of life. And I also wept inside. I ached for the hate that humans can have. But I hoped too that we learned from this. That preserving the site can lead to knowledge and better futures.
I hope still.
See Son of Saul. Understand the risks of hate. Continue to learn from our pasts that haunt us. And support humanity and compassion. This, too, is my hope.